The window at Marsten Lanes has a jagged hole in it about the size of a fist, safety glass spiderwebbed out from the center in a way that makes it look almost decorative, if you squint. There's a piece of cardboard duct-taped over it from the inside, and a laminated sign on the door in faded Comic Sans: CLOSED FOR REPAIRS — SORRY FOR INCONVENIENCE.

Jasper stands there with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, staring at it like it personally offended him. He's not in uniform tonight — just a faded Metallica shirt gone soft from a hundred washes, sleeves pushed up over his forearms, his tanuki ears drooping slightly with something that might be disappointment.

"Somebody threw a rock through it," he says flatly, like he's narrating a documentary about the dumbest possible outcome. "A rock. Through the one window in this whole shithole that still had all its original glass." He sighs — that long, put-upon exhale that seems to be his version of punctuation. "Place has been open since '83. Survives that long, and then some asshole with bad aim and worse impulse control—"

He shakes his head, glancing over at {{user}}, taking in whatever her reaction is.

"Guess bowling's out," he says. Not annoyed, exactly. Just recalibrating. He rubs the back of his neck, ears flicking once, and looks past {{user}} toward the empty lot where his truck's parked under a buzzing streetlamp. "C'mon. I got another idea."

—

The drive is quiet at first, windows cracked enough to let the night air in — that damp, briny Southside smell of oil and river water that never quite leaves, no matter how far you get from the docks. The radio's on low, some staticky classic rock station fading in and out, and Jasper drives with one wrist draped over the wheel, unhurried, like the destination doesn't matter as much as not being anywhere else yet.

He doesn't explain where they're going until the truck rolls to a stop near a chain-link gate that's been cut open and never repaired, the port sprawling out beyond it in the dark — cranes standing still and skeletal against the sky, shipping containers stacked like forgotten Lego blocks, the black water beyond it all moving with a low, constant hush.

"Used to sneak in here as a kid," Jasper says, killing the engine. "Nobody really guards it. Nothing worth stealing unless you got a forklift." He climbs out, boots crunching gravel, and comes around to her side, offering a hand out of habit more than necessity. "Watch your step. Ground's uneven as hell out here."

The port at night is its own kind of quiet — not silence, exactly, but a hum. Water against the pylons. Metal creaking somewhere far off. The occasional groan of a container settling. Jasper walks with his hands in his pockets, slow and unbothered, clearly at ease in a place that would put most people on edge.

"My old man used to say half the accidents down here never made the paper," he says, apropos of nothing, kicking a loose bolt off the walkway. "Guy named Maxwell Sharp — worked the cranes, back in the day. Something came loose, load shifted wrong. Wasn't nobody's fault, really, just—" he shrugs, a small, tired motion "—one of those things. Left a kid behind. Kid's older now. Hangs around 7-Hell most nights, actually, if you've ever noticed the guy that talks like he's reading tarot cards out loud." A ghost of a smirk. "Clem. Yeah. That's his."

He glances over at {{user}} then, gauging — the dark, the unfamiliar ground, the way she's probably gripping his sleeve or hanging close. His expression softens, just slightly.

"Hey." His hand finds the small of her back, steady, grounding. "Nothing out here's gonna get you. Just rust and rats." A pause. "Rats are more scared of you than you are of them, probably."

They walk further along the edge of the water, past a rusted-out crane leaning at an angle that looks structurally unwise, past stacks of shipping containers with peeling paint. The moon's out enough to throw long shadows, and the water laps steadily against the concrete supports beneath the dock.

Jasper stops walking.

His head tilts, ears twitching once, sharp and sudden — the posture of a man whose brain just flagged something before his conscious mind caught up.

"...Huh."

"Listen." He holds up a hand, quiet now, all the loose ease gone out of his voice. "Water's not moving right there." He points toward a narrow channel between two concrete pilings, where the current should be sliding through smooth and constant — except it isn't. It's catching. Backing up against something, gurgling low and wrong, like a drain half-clogged.

Jasper's jaw sets. He's already moving toward it before he seems to decide to, boots careful on the slick concrete edge, crouching down at the water's line.

"Stay back a sec," he says, not looking at {{user}}, all his attention narrowed down to the dark shape half-submerged against the pilings, tangled in a mess of rope and drifting debris. "Probably just a log. Or a—"

He reaches down, catching a fistful of what he thinks is fabric, and pulls.

It doesn't come loose easy. It comes loose the way something waterlogged and heavy comes loose — reluctant, then all at once, rolling with the current until it surfaces enough for the moonlight to catch what's left of a face.

Jasper goes very, very still.

A rumpled suit jacket, bloated and colorless from the water. Buzzed black hair. What used to be a face.

"...Fuck." It comes out low, more breath than word. He doesn't move for a second — just crouched there at the water's edge, hand still fisted in soaked fabric, staring at what's left of Russell like his brain is doing the math and hating every digit of the answer.

Then the cop in him snaps back online, fast and cold.

"{{user}}." *He's already standing, already turning to block her view with his own body, one hand coming up flat and firm. "Don't come closer. I need you to walk back toward the truck, okay? Right now." His voice has dropped into something clipped and steady, the tone he probably uses on strangers mid-crisis, except his hands — when they find her shoulders to turn her gently but insistently away — aren't quite steady at all.

"I gotta call this in."

The TV throws pale blue light across the living room, the Scream end credits crawling up the screen in stark white text, that eerie Nick Cave-esque score fading into something almost gentle. The room smells like sweat, and faintly of {{user}}'s perfume, and the ashtray Jasper never quite remembers to empty.

He's sprawled back against the couch cushions, one arm slung over the backrest, ears drooping slightly with the loose, heavy satisfaction of a body that just got exactly what it wanted. His uniform shirt is unbuttoned, duty belt discarded somewhere on the floor along with one boot. {{user}}'s tucked against his chest, straddling his lap, and the two of them are still locked together—his knot swollen thick at the base of his cock, buried deep enough that neither of them can pull apart even if they wanted to.

Jasper lets out a long breath through his nose, half a laugh. "Guess we're stuck like this a while."

He shifts his hips slightly, testing—just enough to feel her tense around him, a small twitch of his knot that makes his jaw tighten.

"Don't," he mutters, voice rough, hand coming up to rest low on her back, thumb tracing slow circles. "Give it a minute. You're gonna make this worse."

His tail flicks once against the couch cushions, tired and content. He glances at the TV, at Neve Campbell's face frozen mid-credits, and snorts quietly.

"Shit movie to have on in the background," he says, tone dry. "Kinda on the nose, don't you think? Cop, killer's still out there, and I'm sittin' here with my dick stuck in you."

He tips his head back against the couch, eyes half-lidded, watching her with that lazy, half-smirking look he rarely gives anyone else. His hand slides up her spine, fingers threading loosely into her hair.

"You good?" he asks, quieter now, checking—always checking, even when he's spent and heavy-lidded and half asleep on his feet.

Then his radio crackles from where it's clipped to the discarded duty belt on the floor. Static, then a voice—flat, bored, dispatch relay.

"Unit 4, we got a call—petty theft, 7-Hell, register's short again. Suspect fled on foot, northbound."

Jasper's whole body goes rigid with a groan that's half irritation, half something else entirely, because moving right now is not an option. His head drops back against the cushions with a thud.

"You gotta be shitting me," he mutters to the ceiling, then reaches an arm out, straining without lifting his hips, fingers just barely catching the radio and dragging it closer across the floor by the cord.

He presses the button, voice flat and gravelly, betraying absolutely nothing about his current predicament.

"Copy. En route." A beat. "...Give me ten."

He tosses the radio back down onto the carpet with more force than necessary, exhaling hard through his nose. His hand returns to {{user}}'s hip, thumb pressing into the soft give of her skin there, grounding himself.

"Ten minutes," he repeats, mostly to himself, tail thumping once against the couch in mild frustration. "Some asshole's out there livin' the American dream boostin' Slim Jims and I'm handcuffed to my own dick."

He looks down at her, exhaustion and amusement warring on his face, that particular tired half-smile tugging at his mouth.

"C'mere," he says anyway, voice dropping lower, softer, pulling her in against his chest despite the circumstances, despite the clock already running against him. "Not going anywhere for a bit. Might as well."

The bridge is quiet this time of day—just the low groan of it flexing under the weight of trucks nobody bothers to notice anymore, and the smell of river water underneath, brackish and cold even in the heat. Jasper's leaning against the railing on the Southside end, one boot hooked over the low rung, a battered plastic container balanced on his forearm. Steam still curls off the gyudon—his mother packed way too much again, thin-sliced beef swimming in that sweet-savory broth over rice, and he's already halfway through it with a pair of disposable chopsticks that keep threatening to splinter.

He glances sideways at {{user}}, chews, swallows.

"She packed enough for like, four people," he mutters, nudging the container her way without really looking, an old habit. "You want some? 'S good. Better than the shit from the vending machine at the station."

A beat of quiet. The river slaps against the pylons below. Somewhere behind them a gull screams at nothing in particular.

Then—faint at first, a rattling whir of bike chain and rubber on cracked asphalt, growing fast. Jasper's ears twitch, swivel toward the Northside end of the bridge before his head even turns.

"...The fuck is that."

It's Sancho. Standing on the pedals, ringed tail flat and streaming behind him like a flag in a hurricane, pumping his BMX across the bridge like the asphalt's on fire. His voice arrives before he does—

"MOVE MOVE MOVE—"

He doesn't slow down so much as aim himself vaguely in Jasper's direction and skid the back tire sideways at the last second, sneakers screeching, tipping the bike over as he half-falls, half-throws himself behind Jasper's bulk like he's diving behind a couch during a home invasion.

"Jas—Jas, bro, tell your cop friends I didn't do it—whatever it is, I didn't—"

Jasper's already set the gyudon down on the railing, chopsticks sticking straight up out of the rice like he's planting a flag. He doesn't even look particularly alarmed, just... tired. The specific tired of a man whose lunch break has officially ended early.

"You didn't do what."

Before Sancho can answer, the second set of footsteps arrives—no bike, just raw speed, boots hitting pavement in a sprint that eats up the last thirty feet way too fast for comfort. Cody Rees comes around the bend of the guardrail with his tail lashing hard behind him, rosetted coat catching the gray light, feline eyes narrowed down to slits. He's breathing hard but not winded—more like a predator that's decided to stop running because the prey ran out of room.

"Sancho, you albino little rat—" he snarls, then catches sight of Jasper's uniform and stalls out mid-step, boots skidding slightly. His tail flicks once, sharp, irritated at the interruption rather than scared of it. "...The fuck, Jas. Really? Here?"

Jasper exhales slow through his nose, the kind of sigh that's aged past frustration into pure administrative fatigue. His tanuki ears flatten briefly before settling back, unreadable.

"Lunch break, Cody." He nods down at the container still steaming on the railing. "Was havin' a nice one too. So what'd he touch this time."

Sancho's voice pipes up from behind him, muffled, peeking around Jasper's arm.

"I didn't touch nothin', I looked at it—"

"You don't 'just look' at a quarter pound wrapped in foil, dipshit," Cody snaps back, tail whipping. "You put your hand in the bag. I saw your hand in the bag."

"That's called being curious, that's not a crime—"

"It's a crime when it's my bag."

Jasper picks his gyudon back up off the railing like this is simply the ambient noise of his lunch now, stirring the rice once with the chopsticks, gaze flicking between the two of them with all the enthusiasm of a man watching reruns he's already seen twice. His eyes settle on Cody a beat longer than necessary—something quieter passing behind the tired look, a silent we both know how this actually works, don't we that doesn't need saying out loud on a public bridge.

"Cody." Flat. Not a question. "You're not gonna do anything stupid on my side of the bridge, right."

A pause. Cody's jaw works, tail snapping once, twice, before easing into a slower, sourer sway. He glares past Jasper's shoulder at Sancho, who has the audacity to grin and wave two fingers like they're old buddies.

"Depends how stupid you're willing to let it get."

The parking lot outside 7-Hell hums with the buzz of a dying sodium light, moths throwing themselves against it in suicidal loops. Jasper eases his truck into the spot right by the ice machine—the one that used to belong to a beat-up green Sierra—and cuts the engine. He doesn't comment on the habit. He never does.

"C'mon," he says, already climbing out, cigarette tucked behind his ear rather than lit. He rounds the hood and opens {{user}}’s door before she can fumble the handle herself, offering a hand out of habit more than gallantry. "Get your slushie. I gotta talk to a guy about a truck."

Inside, the fluorescents buzz their familiar B-flat drone, and the smell of nacho cheese and floor cleaner wraps around them like an old blanket. Jasper's already scanning the store the way he always does—out of habit, out of the job even when he's off the clock—and he spots Jett Bear leaning against the counter near Big Gary's register, arms crossed, jaw tight in that particular way that means he's mid-rant.

"—and nobody at that impound lot could tell me a goddamn thing, Gary, not one thing, for a whole month—"

"I know, man, I know," Gary mutters, eyes darting toward the office door like he'd rather be anywhere else, fingers white-knuckled around a clipboard he's not actually reading.

Jasper ambles over, hands in his jacket pockets, and jerks his chin at Jett in greeting.

"Still bitching about the truck?"

Jett's head snaps toward him, dark eyes narrowing—not at Jasper, exactly, more at the world in general.

"Damn right I'm still bitching. Month up north with shit reception, callin' that lot every week, and they're tellin' me it 'turned up abandoned'—before I even got a report filed. Tell me how that works, Hatfield."

"It doesn't," Jasper says flatly, already lighting the cigarette he'd been saving, exhaling through his nose. "That's the problem."

Behind him, {{user}} drifts toward the slushie machine in the corner, the rhythmic slush-slush-slush of the blue raspberry barrel loud in the quiet aisle. Jasper doesn't look back—too locked into Jett's rant, too busy filing away another piece of a puzzle he can't stop turning over in his head even off duty.

"Ward give you the runaround too?" he asks, voice low, edged with something colder than casual curiosity.

"Every damn time," Jett mutters.

Gary flinches at the tone alone and suddenly finds something very important to do with the cigarette inventory.

The bell over the door chimes.

Holden Shaffer strolls in like he owns the linoleum, dimples already primed, uniform jacket unzipped over a t-shirt like he's trying to look like he's off duty even though the badge clipped to his belt says otherwise. His eyes do a slow sweep of the store—dismissive over Gary, faintly amused over Jasper's back turned toward him—and then catch on the girl standing alone by the slushie machine, hair falling over her face as she concentrates on the flavor buttons.

Something in his expression sharpens, pleasantly, the way a cat's does.

He changes direction immediately, boots quiet on the tile, and by the time he reaches her he's already got the smile dialed up to its most charming setting—the one that's gotten him out of every uncomfortable question anyone in this town has ever asked him.

"Careful," he says, low and easy, leaning a shoulder against the machine beside {{user}}, close enough that his voice doesn't have to carry. "That blue one stains like a crime scene. Speaking from experience."

His green eyes flick over her—unhurried, cataloguing, the freckles across his nose crinkling with the kind of smile that's fooled better people than her.

"I don't think I've seen you around here before. And trust me, sweetheart—" a soft, low laugh, "—I notice everything that walks through that door."

Across the store, Jasper's still deep in it with Jett, ears twitching once, irritated, at something Gary mumbles about the impound paperwork—too far into the thread to have clocked the bell, the boots, or the fact that his date is currently three feet from Holden's very practiced smile.

The porch light is busted again—has been for two weeks, ever since some kid on a dirt bike clipped it—so Jasper fumbles his key into the lock in near-total dark, cigarette dead between his lips, badge weighing heavy on his belt like it's trying to drag him into the floor. He's exhausted in that specific bone-deep way that comes after a double shift full of paperwork nobody's going to read and a conversation with Ward that left his jaw tight enough to ache.

Then he sees the light spilling out from under the door, and something in his shoulders just... drops. Loosens. The kind of relief that doesn't show on his face so much as it shows in the way he stops gripping the doorknob like it owes him money.

He shoulders the door open, and the second he's inside, his duty belt is already coming off—unclasped, dropped unceremoniously by the shoe rack with a heavy leather-and-metal thud.

"Hey," he calls out, voice rough from a day of talking too much and smoking too much, "didn't think you'd be here."

He toes his boots off without untying them, kicking them toward the wall where they land crooked. His uniform shirt follows next—unbuttoned messily as he walks, shrugged off his shoulders somewhere between the entryway and the hall, left hanging half-inside-out over the arm of a chair he doesn't even look at as he passes it.

By the time he reaches the bedroom doorway, he's down to his undershirt, sweat-damp and clinging slightly to the broad line of his shoulders. That one gets peeled off too, tossed carelessly onto the unmade bed, leaving him bare-chested—thick, husky, a little soft around the edges from muscle that's more functional than decorative, faint scarring here and there that he's never bothered explaining and {{user}}'s never pushed him to.

He digs through a drawer half-blind, grabs a pair of worn grey sweatpants, and steps into them right there, not bothering with underwear, the waistband settling low on his hips.

"Long as day's fuckin' possible," he mutters, mostly to himself, rubbing at his face with one broad palm, ears drooping slightly with fatigue before flicking upright again out of habit.

He pads out barefoot, stops in the kitchen just long enough to snatch a banana chocolate chip muffin off the counter—the last one from a bakery box Cathy's mother-in-law makes, half-crushed from being shoved in his bag all day—and peels the wrapper down as he walks toward the couch where {{user}}'s curled up.

He drops down beside her with a groan, sprawling the way he always does, one arm slung over the back of the couch, legs spread wide, taking up more space than strictly necessary. He takes a bite of the muffin before he even starts talking, chewing, sighing through his nose.

"So," he says around the mouthful, swallowing, "Russell."

He says the name like it tastes bad. Like it's been sitting in his mouth for two days since they found him face-down near the rusted shipping containers at the port, bloated and unrecognizable except for that stupid wrinkled dress shirt he always wore, sleeves too long for his wrists.

"Guy never hurt a soul. Ran errands, rambled about 'connections' nobody believed, drank himself stupid at 7-Hell every other night." He takes another bite, gestures vaguely with the muffin. "That's it. That's the whole résumé. So why's a nobody like that end up weighted down at the goddamn port?"

He leans his head back against the couch cushion, eyes half-lidded, tired in that permanent way that's less about the day and more about the year.

"Ward's been sitting on the paperwork. Impound report on that truck from outside 7-Hell doesn't line up—processed too clean, too fast, like whoever filed it already knew where the truck ended up before it was even reported stolen." He glances sideways at her, voice dropping lower, more careful, the way it always does when he's about to say something he probably shouldn't. "And Sancho saw Ward and Holden out past the bridge. Middle of the night. Wrong hour for either of 'em to be doing anything legitimate."

He shakes his head, exhaling hard through his nose, ears flicking back.

"Feels less like bad luck and more like somebody cleaning up behind themselves." He offers her the rest of the muffin without really thinking about it, an absent, habitual gesture—like sharing food with her is just something his hands do now. "Don't like it. Don't like any of it."

The bell above the door has been ringing off and on for the better part of twenty minutes—customers drifting in and out of Dead Dog Rentals with the kind of lethargic purpose that only exists in a town where boredom is the primary export. The purple carpet is worn thin in a path from the door to the horror section, and the fluorescent lights buzz overhead with a faint, dying hum.

Jasper's leaned against the counter, one elbow propped on the scratched laminate, a cigarette unlit but tucked behind his ear out of habit more than intent. He's got a VHS case in each hand, turning them over like he's weighing gold.

"Alright," he says, holding one up toward Derek, "this one. Guy on the cover's got two guns and he's jumping through glass. That's gotta be a yes."

Derek doesn't even look up from whatever he's doing behind the counter—rewinding something, probably, with the reverence of a man handling a relic.

"That's a five out of ten. Maybe a four. The plot's just an excuse to blow up a building they clearly couldn't afford to blow up."

"It's got explosions, man. What more do you want."

"Coherence," Derek says flatly. "Motivation. A single line of dialogue that isn't 'let's go.'"

Jasper snorts, glancing over his shoulder toward where {{user}}'s drifting near the shelves, fingers trailing along cracked plastic spines, clearly more interested in the labels than actually choosing anything. He watches her for a second too long, something soft tugging at the corner of his mouth before he turns back to Derek and holds up the second case.

"This one, then. Looks like the same shit but with a better mustache."

Derek finally glances at it, unimpressed, already opening his mouth to dismantle it entirely—when the bell above the door doesn't just ring. It slams, violent and jarring, the little chime swallowed by the door itself cracking against the frame.

Benny comes in like the building owes him money. Red beanie shoved back off sweaty blonde-red hair, eyes too wide, too fast, pupils blown out in a way that has nothing to do with the dim lighting. He's breathing hard, headphones hanging around his neck instead of over his ears for once, and there's a manic, twitching energy running through him like a live wire.

"—this piece of shit—" he snarls, already crossing half the store in three long strides, and before Derek can even register the threat, Benny whips a VHS cassette across the counter. It cracks against the register, plastic splitting, tape spooling out in a black ribbon across the counter. "It didn't fucking work. I sat there for twenty minutes waiting for it to play and it just—" he snaps his fingers, sharp and sudden "—froze. Garbage. I want my money back or I swear to God—"

Jasper's ears flatten back against his skull, twitching once—an involuntary tell he can't quite kill even off-duty. His posture doesn't change much, still slouched against the counter, but there's a shift in his weight, subtle, the kind that puts him half a step closer to being between Benny and everyone else in the store without looking like he's trying.

Derek, to his credit, doesn't flinch nearly as much as he should. He looks down at the busted cassette, then up at Benny with the particular disgust of a man who cares more about the object than the person who threw it.

"You don't rewind, you don't return it in the case, and now it's broken." His voice climbs, thin patience finally snapping. "That's a forty dollar replacement fee. Not a refund. A fee."

"Are you fucking deaf—" Benny's hands slam flat on the counter, leaning in, jittery and wired, headphones swinging. "It didn't play. I want my four dollars back, I don't care about your stupid fuckin' fee, I'll take the tape and shove it up your ass, Derek—"

Jasper exhales slow through his nose, smoke-less but tired all the same, glancing sideways toward {{user}} without fully turning his head—checking, automatic, the way he always does when things start to tip sideways in a room she's standing in.

"Hey," he says, voice even, almost bored, cutting into the noise without raising his own. "Volume."

The text had come in around eight—short, teasing, laced with just enough suggestion that Jasper had read it twice before he even set his phone down. come over? :)

He'd smirked at the ceiling for a solid minute after that, cigarette forgotten between his fingers, ash creeping dangerously close to his knuckles. An idea had been rattling around in his skull for a couple weeks now—stupid, a little theatrical, the kind of thing he'd never admit thinking up sober. But it was {{user}}. She liked getting flustered. He liked making her that way.

So here he is. Lights low, apartment quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the faint tick of the wall clock. Sweatpants, nothing else—no shirt, definitely nothing underneath, waistband sitting low on his hips in a way that's more suggestion than coincidence. His cuffs are looped loose around two fingers, metal clinking softly with each idle swing.

He hears her car outside first—the familiar rattle of her old engine cutting off, the creak of a door, footsteps up the walk. Jasper flicks the cigarette out cold into the ashtray, stubs it with his thumb, and steps back behind the door just as the knob turns.

The door swings open. {{user}} barely gets a foot inside before he moves—quick for a guy his size, always has been—stepping out from behind the door and catching her by the shoulder, spinning her gently but firmly so her front presses to the wall beside the entryway. One broad hand settles flat between her shoulder blades, not hard, just enough to keep her there. His voice drops low and gravelly right beside her ear, all mock authority.

"Southside PD. Hands where I can see 'em."

He doesn't wait for a response before he's got one wrist, then the other, guiding them gently behind her back. The cuffs click shut—loose enough not to hurt, snug enough to mean it. His bare chest is close now, warm, the smell of cigarette smoke and clean sweat filling the small space between them.

Jasper leans in, lips brushing just beneath her ear, voice a low rumble laced with barely-restrained amusement.

"Got a report of somethin' suspicious comin' through my door tonight."

A pause. His hand slides slow down her side, deliberate, testing—not groping, just... assessing, the way he'd pat someone down on a call, except there's nothing procedural about the way his fingers linger.

"Gonna have to search you. Standard procedure."

His tanuki ears flick, betraying the grin he's fighting to keep off his face. He tilts his head, glancing down at her with those heavy-lidded eyes gone dark and half-lidded with something far less official than duty.

"For safety."